


Wake Up and Smell the Coffee (You're in Love, You Idiot)

by danceswithhamsters01



Series: Reddit Prompts [87]
Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/M, Falling In Love, Jumbled memory, Waking up after being rescued, Wynne is fed up and sets people straight, Zevran to the rescue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-23
Updated: 2020-03-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:20:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23283139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/danceswithhamsters01/pseuds/danceswithhamsters01
Summary: Based on a prompt from r/dragonage.Prompt 1: Your OC finally realizes they’re in love.Sevarra Amell got too cocky and tried to take on several werewolves by herself. Fortunately for her, Zevran found her in time. This is what happened the following day.
Relationships: Female Amell/Zevran Arainai
Series: Reddit Prompts [87]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1153856
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	Wake Up and Smell the Coffee (You're in Love, You Idiot)

Pain and the cloying scent of far too much embrium essence in a confined space assaulted her senses upon waking. She opened her eyes with a gasp, heart hammering in her chest. It took several seconds of staring at the canvas overhead to realize that she was in fact in a tent and not out alone in the forest. Camp? She was back in the camp? How did that happen? The last thing she remembered was…

Sevarra sat up and immediately hissed a pained curse, regretting rising from the pile of warm sleeping furs she’d been cocooned in.

 _What had I been doing?_ The question gnawed at her while she went searching through her memories, which felt akin to wading through knee-deep mud. It came slowly, one scrap of memory at a time. They were in the Brecilian forest, they’d found a clan of Dalish elves who claimed to be suffering from a disease brought on by a group of werewolves. She’d agreed to look for the werewolves and find their leader. There was something about needing a heart to break a curse? Assuming her memory could be trusted, of course. She went to rub her chin, only to curse in pain again as her arm burned in protest over being bent.

The mage sighed and took a moment to regard herself. Heat rushed to her cheeks when she found herself clad in only her breeches and breast band. She found that her arms were wrapped in bandages from wrist to the middle of her upper arms and that the cloth smelled heavily of embrium. Running one cautious hand over a wrapped arm, she winced in pain as she felt the long lacerations that ran up and down it. Normally, embrium was used for respiratory ailments. However, crushing equal measures of it and elfroot and making a paste had been found to have anti-infective properties. Such knowledge was most commonly held by herbalists and mages, so it stood to reason that Wynne or Morrigan had seen to her. _But why don’t I remember either of them doing it? They would’ve had a grand time scolding me,_ she thought.

Shifting her gaze from her bandaged arms, she caught the sight of another bundle of sleeping furs across the tent from her. The figure wrapped in said furs turned out to be one very exhausted tattooed elf if the dark rings beneath Zevran’s eyes were any indication. He scrunched his brows and murmured something she couldn’t understand and continued dozing. The memories came rushing back, one after another. She’d been tracking werewolves in the forest with Alistair, Morrigan, and Zevran. The beasts proved elusive for most of the day. And then they’d bumbled into a bear’s cave, raising the ire of bear who dwelt within. Not content to let them flee, the bear followed them outside. During the battle, she’d caught sight of a werewolf attempting to sneak up on Morrigan. She remembered scaring it off with a well-placed lightning bolt and then taking off after it, leaving Alistair and Morrigan to bicker over whatever it was that annoyed them at that particular second. Maker’s mercy, the would-be templar and witch spent that entire morning squabbling from the moment they left camp; each no doubt finding the other’s breathing offensive. The arguing was in no small part of the reason she’d taken off after that werewolf alone.

 _You sodding idiot,_ she fumed to herself. That werewolf led her into an ambush. One against one very quickly changed to one against four. While she’d managed to electrocute and kill two of them – her nose wrinkled at the memory of the scent of burnt fur – two giant beasts that had reflexes that any hare or rabbit would be envious of proved too much for a quickly tiring and wounded mage to fend off. It was all she could do to avoid being bitten, one of them having chomped her lovely ice magic enhancing staff in half. Their claws sliced through her leather gear as if it were made of papery onion skin. She looked down at her torso; if not for her brigandine, she suspected she would’ve had even more wounds.

Her gaze drifted back to Zevran, who murmured again and rolled over in his sleep. Her eyes went wide as the memory came back to her: He’d come for her, he’d saved her. He moved with such speed and precision that he didn’t even seem like the same person who orchestrated the unsuccessful ambush to kill her and Alistair. He dodged their claws as if his movements were steps in a dance rather than a life or death fight. The assassin slit the throat of one beast and impaled the other’s heart with his sword with brutal efficiency. She’d been too injured and exhausted to marvel over the feat or be frightened by it. No, what stuck out in her mind was the look in his eyes the moment he was certain the monsters were dead: softness and worry.

 _He… found me, brought me back._ Heat rose in her cheeks. _He could’ve gotten killed because of me!_ Shame and a soft feeling battled for control, keeping her sat in place in her pile of furs. Eventually, after what seemed like far too long, one of the feelings won. She touched her cheek in confusion, wondering why it was wet.

 _I could’ve died before telling him how I--_ she interrupted the thought with a question. _I… I feel that way about him? How long have I--_ she shook her head. Letting her gaze land on the sleeping elf only made the soft feeling consume even more of her focus. She sat on a hand rather than let it drift over to him and brush a bit of hair out of his face. He needed rest and he seemed the type to be a light sleeper normally.

 _What if he doesn’t--_ Another thought interrupted the first one. _Come off it. You’ve seen how he looks at you. Why not let him speak for himself?_ Spotting a clean linen shirt laying next to her pack, she grabbed it and pulled it on.

With an uneasy breath, Sevarra crept out of the tent as quietly as she could manage, hoping to not wake her sleeping companion. She didn’t make it more than three steps from it before an irate senior enchanter grabbed her by the ear and carted her off to “talk.”

“OW! Ow ow ow! What the blazes are you doing?! I’m not a kid, Wynne! Let go!”

“Are you? Are you really? Act like a child and you will be treated like one!” the elder hissed. After they were some distance from their slumbering companions, Wynne spoke again. “What in the world possessed you to take off running by yourself?! Perhaps it slipped your mind, young lady, but you are one of ONLY TWO Grey Wardens left in the kingdom! You cannot afford to be reckless! You are not indestructible, no matter how much you think otherwise! You can’t let Alistair carry the burden by himself.”

Sevarra broke free, covering a sore and reddened ear with one hand. She scowled for a few moments until the pain dulled. “I was chasing off a werewolf trying to sneak up on Morrigan while she was distracted.”

Wynne folded her arms and glared. “From what Zevran told me, there were four of them when he found you. Four against one! What were you thinking?! I know you’re smarter than that, Irving doesn’t train idiots. Why did you go alone?”

The Warden folded her arms and looked away, frowning. “There was only one to start with. It led me to the other three.”

“Why didn’t you bring help with you?”

The younger mage frowned again and feigned a particular interest in a pebble next to her boot. “Because I was bloody sick of listening to them argue, alright? Every damned day, they snark, jibe, poke, snarl, and snip at each other. They’ve done it for months, those two. Maker forgive me, I adore them, but they get on like wet cats stuffed into a laundry sack.”

“And what of the third, hm? You obviously have no issues with Zevran, the way you moon over him,” Wynne said.

“I do not--” Sevarra clamped her mouth shut. As much as she was loathe to admit that the senior enchanter was right, she _did_ moon over the assassin.

Wynne cocked a brow to go along with the smirk on her mouth. The woman knew she’d hit her mark.

Sevarra unfolded her arms and squeezed her hands into fists while taking a deep breath and then very carefully relaxed her posture. “It did not occur to me in the moment.”

Later, after the scolding was finished, the smaller Warden sat on a log near the campfire, feeling rather displeased with everything in general. Heavy steps and the light jingle and clank of mixed mail and plate announced the arrival of company. The figure carefully sat himself down on the other half of the log.

“I see Wynne blistered your ears, too, eh?” Alistair said.

She turned her head to regard him. “What do you mean ‘too’?”

“She tore into Morrigan and I last night. I think that was the first time I ever saw the witch even remotely close to being afraid. I’m surprised Wynne’s carrying on didn’t wake you up!” he chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck with a hand. “I think she used a sleeping spell on you to pull that off.”

She frowned. _That would be something she’d use, mostly on someone who’d been heavily injured, to keep them still for a while,_ she thought. “I could believe that.”

They sat staring into the fire for a little while before she spoke again. “I don’t remember how I got to camp.”

Another nervous hand caressed the back of his neck. “Zevran carried you back. You were delirious and then you got too floppy to walk by yourself. You were hurt pretty badly.” He turned to face her. “And the next time you think you need to run off on your own? Don’t. We’ve still got the blight to stop. And… I don’t have so many friends that I can just let one run off and get herself killed, alright?”

She nodded wordlessly then pulled her knees up under her chin. They spoke in starts and stops, allowing a comfortable silence to sit from time to time. Eventually, Alistair was called away to help Leliana with checking traps to see if they’d captured anything for the stew pot. The others, she’d been informed, were out looking for evidence of werewolves, but she was to keep herself in camp for the day to rest.

The mage sat by the fire, mindlessly poking at it with a stick until that stick turned to char. By midday, Zevran emerged from the tent yawning and blearily blinking.

The smile came without a thought. “Morning. I’m guessing I wasn’t the only one Wynne magic’d to sleep.”

He answered with a chuckle and then claimed a spot on the log next to her. “It seems you are feeling more yourself now, yes? No more wanting to bite or fistfight werewolves, I hope?”

The laugh came freely before she could even consider stifling it. “You could say that, yes. I _am_ still pissed that they wrecked that perfectly good staff of mine, however.”

“Tsk, such poor manners, those creatures,” he replied with an amused shake of his head.

Their gazes met and locked, each still wearing a hint of a smile. She didn’t know what she was doing until she found herself pressing her lips gently against his, marveling at how soft they felt. Her smile fled with the arrival of heat flooding cheeks. She pulled back, sheepish. “Thank you. For saving me, that is.”

He wore a playful smirk but something soft was twinkling in his eye. “How about a more proper ‘thank you,’ hm?” he said while lightly cupping her chin.

Needing no further prompting, she closed her eyes as she drew close enough to steal another kiss, marveling at the warm tingling sensation that ran from head to toe as lips and tongue gave and took in a dance of teasing and desire. After finally catching her breath, a smile found her mouth as she relented and admitted it to herself: For good or ill, she was falling for Zevran. Hard.


End file.
